Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 28-Nov. 3)

Last Friday, I drove with my favorite girl crush into the city to see “Betrayal,” the new Mike Nichols play starring Daniel Craig. It was worth sitting in two hours of traffic just to see James Bond up close for 90 minutes. Seriously sexy.

On Saturday, my best girlfriend and I went to Brooklyn for a failed attempt to see Junot Diaz at the Brooklyn Public Library. Take note that the security guard there does not care how far you drove or how much you love an author. When she says there’s no room, there’s no room. And I think she was carrying a pistol.

So, we made the best of things, eating and drinking our way through Park Slope. The drinking paved the way for me spending $38 on a knit cap when we stopped to do some shopping. It’s not cheap being a hipster.

Two days later, my single gal pal and I drove back into Brooklyn to, well, I’ll remind you about that in a minute.

Anyway, my posts last week were also all over the place.

The one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy reminded my how much I love hot coffee first thing in the morning, a light on when I use the bathroom and heat. I really love heat.

The PTSD kicked in earlier this month, when the weather around here started to cool down but not enough to warrant switching the heat on in the house.

On a few of those days, sitting in my chilly kitchen mid-morning working – before the afternoon sun warmed up the front of the house – I’d flash back to those few weeks last year when the sun was the only thing we had to rely on to heat the house. (READ MORE … )

So, as I started to say, last Monday I drove to Brooklyn to see a taping of NPR’s “Ask Me Another,” which reminded me of what a geek I’ve become. And it’s okay.

I spent the first half of my life trying to be cool so it’s kind of interesting that I’ve become such a geek in mid-life.

And while I think my affinity for show tunes, talk radio, Hobbits and comic books had been ingrained at an early age, I spent a lot of time back in the day trying to temper such nerdy impulses with cigarettes and attitude.

But now I am too old and busy fighting about curfews and telling certain people to put on a sweatshirt to keep those appetites in check. (READ MORE … )

Finally, if my calculations are correct — and I’m an English major so it’s a long shot — there are 52 days until Christmas (sorry). That means that between now and December 25, there is a lot of holiday terrain to navigate. And whether you’re dealing with difficult family members, growing children, the loss of a loved one or a change in marital status, traditions evolve. It’s inevitable.

I was agitated earlier this week when I got a text from my ex-husband announcing it was his year to spend Thanksgiving with our four children.

I had already committed to hosting the holiday at my house for my side of the family and was looking forward to the planning and execution of the dinner alongside my girls. We’ve had fun over the years peeling potatoes and baking turkey cakes side by side in our kitchen. I love how well we work together, how one of the girls slices the apples while another prepares the filling and then I sprinkle the sugary crumble on top. (READ MORE … )

I also got distracted by a bunch of things online last week, as I am wont to do, which I shared on Facebook (and I’m too lazy to rewrite the links so apologies for the SCREAMING HEADLINES):

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All about Amy

Amy is a humorist who writes about things like divorce, parenting slippery teenagers, mid-life dating (or lack thereof) and her irrational fear of tuna fish. A former journalist and online news editor, her personal essays have been featured in Family Circle magazine and on Scary Mommy and Grown and Flown. She told her story on stage of finding the courage to jump off the cliff of indecision into divorce at the 2015 production of Listen to Your Mother North Jersey and sits on the advisory board of Project Write Now in Red Bank, NJ. Amy has also appeared as a panelist on “MomsEveryday,” a syndicated, half-hour program airing in 55 television markets. When she’s not developing social media strategies and creating online content for her clients, Amy can be found Googling her next travel adventure and trying not to eat bread.